


I Wouldn't Wear It

by Scrunchles



Series: Christmas 2017 [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Department Store, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-20 16:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13150275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: Some idiot lost a bet and keeps coming in daily for ugly sweaters.  He's too friendly and also very cute once Mako thinks about it too much.





	I Wouldn't Wear It

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Woden’s Skadi as well as the rest of my patrons for all their wonderful support. 
> 
> The prompt for this one was: Character A loses a bet and has to wear a different ugly Christmas sweater every day till Christmas. Character B works at a clothes store.

“Is this considered ugly?”

Mako sighs heavily and turns around to see some skinny twat wearing cut off shorts at the tail end of an American midwest November.  The sweater he’s holding has a repeating pattern of kittens chasing yarn balls in a faux cross stitch pattern any grandmother would love.

 

It must be for one of those parties.  “I wouldn’t wear it,” Mako says.

 

“Sold.”  The man walks off with the sweater and Mako shakes his head while he returns to folding down the graphic tee table for the fifth time today.

\-----

“What do you mean it’s not ugly enough?!”

 

Mako looks up with a raised brow.  A man wearing a sweater with cross stitched kittens printed on it-- actually, the same man who had distracted him yesterday— is unfolding every goddamned sweater on the gondola he’s at, apparently looking for what sounds like another one that is equally hideous.

 

“Back again?”  Mako asks, trying not to lament the death of the display he had spent an hour on.  The sooner he could get the loud, rude purveyor of sweaters to go the fuck away, the sooner he could fix it and move on in his section.

 

“Hey!  Mate!”  He turns the Facetime on his phone off quickly and bounces over to Mako, which seems like it should be more difficult than he makes it look, since he has a prosthetic leg.  His attitude and past purchase suggest that he does everything over the top, though.  

 

“Right, so I lost a bet to my best sheila, and now I need an ugly sweater for every day of the month.”

 

Mako hums and eyes the customer.  They definitely don’t have enough sweaters to fit that number if it’s just the men’s and women's sections. “You’ll probably fit a kids’ extra large… you mind a little midriff showing?”

 

The customer grins and wraps his arm around Mako’s.  He hadn’t offered it to him.  He just fucking took it. 

Mako’s about to tell him to fuck off when he notices the earnest way the younger man is talking to him.  He has freckles on his cheeks and nose and his eyes are a bright color.  He can feel corded muscle against his arm through the kid’s shirt.  Shit.  He’s actually really cute, and this is one of the situations his friend Aleks had told him to embrace rather than react to.  Mako stares at the other man’s freckles as he allows his arm to be taken.  The man seems to have an interesting sense of humor too, if a little intense.

 

Once Mako is holding his arm back, the customer grins widely and taps his fingers against the back of Mako’s much larger hand. “Lead the way, mate.”

\-----

Mako is stretched out on his couch with a sandwich on his stomach and his pet pot bellied pig trapped between his legs, trying to steal it.  This is the perfect day off.

 

So why is he wondering what that asshole with the sweaters is going to do without him to help pick one out?  He always came in at the same time and always only bought one sweater before leaving, though he would look at multiple ones and ask Mako’s opinion on which was the worst.

 

He can... fuck, no, he is not considering stopping by the store.  He isn’t going to fucking do that to himself.

 

That would be obsessive.  And stupid.  And a little desperate.  Didn’t the guy say he had a girlfriend, anyway?

 

Mako’s legs loosen just enough for Hoginald to slip through and start chowing down on Mako’s sandwich.

 

He doesn’t stop him and rubs his hands across his face.  He has it bad.  He has it bad for the type of person who loses a bet and ends up wearing a different ugly sweater every day for a month.

\-----

When Mako walks in, the cashier up front does a double take.  He never comes in on his days off.

“Did you get called in?” She asks uncertainly.

 

“No,” Mako says and keeps walking.

 

This is stupid.  He wasn’t nice or social enough to have working relationships, what made him think he could have a relationship for fun or pleasure?

 

He checks men’s first, then women’s. As a last ditch, he goes to the children’s section and that’s where he sees him.

 

Mako feels a warm smile on his lips, then he gets closer and sees a cute, tiny Korean girl giggling at the sweater the tall blonde man has on.

 

It’s a children’s license sweater, but the character on the front looks like it’s had a bad transition from its traditional medium to a Christmas sweater.

 

Mako is about to turn right back around and leave when the blonde man sees him and waves at him enthusiastically.  

 

His girlfriend sees Mako and smiles before nudging the skinny man and saying something with a coy look on her face.

 

This… is going to be awkward.

 

“Jamie didn’t tell me I’d get to meet his personal sweater guru today,” the girl says.

Well, at least he knows his name now 

 

“Isn’t this one perfect?” Jamie asks, holding his arms out. The sweater comes halfway up his forearms and nearly above his navel at the motion.

 

The girl laughs and Mako finds himself smiling despite himself.

 

“I’m so sorry he keeps bugging you with this…?” the girl says, inflection telling him she wants to know his name.

 

“Mako,” he says, watching Jamie wiggle out of the sweater and averting his eyes when he realizes that he’s eyeing most of his torso in front of his girlfriend.  

 

“Hana.”  She offers him her hand and he gingerly clasps it.  She gives it a squeeze far firmer than he expects, and if he wasn’t so hung up on her dating his crush, he would be impressed.

 

“Jamie!” Jamie says, grabbing Mako’s hand once Hana releases it.

 

“He’s a handful,” Mako says, allowing Jamie to pump his hand up and down before giving his hand a hard squeeze to get him to stop being overly friendly with his girlfriend right there.

 

“Sounds like he owes you a thank you,” Hana says, elbowing Jamie again.

 

Jamie laughs and looks up at Mako with a strange sort of smile, nearly bashful, which didn’t mesh with what he knew of him at all.  He’s tugging at the sweater he’s wearing, blue with several snow people on the front.

 

“I always wanted to ask… but you were working and all-- wait, it’s not casual Friday, is it?”  Jamie looks around like he’s trying to see if the rest of the employees are in jeans and a sweater like Mako, but no one’s around.

 

Mako snorts and shakes his head.  “First of all, it’s Tuesday, and second… I’m off work.  What do you want?” he asks, hoping it doesn’t come across as gruff.  Most of the things he says do.  

 

If it did, Jamie is undeterred by it.  “You want to go get a cuppa?  I know I’m pretty embarrassing with a snowman family on my chest, but—“

 

“I thought she was your girlfriend,” Mako says, cutting him off.  He probably doesn’t mean it as a date. It’s probably a friend thing.  Idiot—

 

“Oh, no.  God no.”  Hana laughs and shakes her head.  “We’re really good friends, but Jamie’s… not for me.”

 

“Hey!” Jamie bounds over to wrap her in his arms and shake her.  “It’s the other way around!  I’m gay, she’s the one who don’t appeal to my tastes!”

 

Hana giggles and Mako feels warmth spread in his chest as doubts drop away.

 

“Coffee,” Mako says, reaching out to rest his hand on Jamie’s shoulder to get him to stop thrashing around with Hana.  “Coffee sounds good.”


End file.
